Conventional colostomies involve a surgical procedure in which the intestine is severed and an end of the intestine is brought out through an incision in the abdominal wall of a patient. The securement of the intestine to the skin of the abdominal wall is such as to provide a passage for fecal matter outside the patient's body. The end opening of this passage is called the "stoma".
The foregoing type of operation results in a loss of continence for the patient and he or she must typically wear a pouch on the outside of the body in order to collect the fecal matter passing through the stoma. In order to avoid such incontinence, several types of closure devices have been proposed for closing off the stoma in order that a patient need not be burdened with the pouch.
Most such closure devices require a complicate surgical procedure, involving an invasion into the intestine itself. Further, any such closure device located on the abdominal wall or immediately beneath the abdominal wall in the area of the stoma is "unnatural" in its specific location.